The Baltimore Gas and Electric Company has agreed to pay $350,000 to Black job candidates as a fine for having lower numbers of African-American hires in two trainee job classifications than was expected by the U.S. Department of Labor.

The company was fined for an imbalance in hiring Black candidates for training in distribution construction and as cable splicers between December 2007 and November 2008, according to the Baltimore Sun. BGE's CEO Kenneth W. DeFontes Jr. said those jobs were traditionally filled through referrals, but the company began resolving the issue in 2009 after noticing the imbalance.

"We've signed this agreement, we will comply certainly with both the spirit and intent, but we also want to make sure people know this is something we had already corrected," DeFontes said to the Baltimore Sun. "I think we're now on a trajectory that is really where we need to be as a company."
The $350,000 will be split between 58 Black job candidates. More than 30 percent of the company's utility trainee hires are now minority applicants, according to DeFontes.

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